Nihilii

I wish my level 22 KM/SD scrapper was softcapped. I also wish I understood why so many people are in denial about Shield. Finally, I wish I could see just once this mythical casual player who can't purple his warshade, dies everytime he activates a taunt aura, can't complete the LRSF without shivans/nukes on a full team and yet apparently has no trouble defeating 2 AVs in a 10 second window.

At a quick glance, I think you're getting your numbers from Mids. The fire DOTs are averaged poorly and the epic blasts are shown doing twice as much damage as they actually do.

I would be careful with looking at DPA on individual powers in a vacuum, while it can help there's also many other things to consider - amount of self damage buffage being the most obvious one. I say this because you're mentioning fiery melee as the choice you're considering, and individual DPA numbers bring fire in the top spot by far, but it's not that above the other primaries in actual gameplay (although fire/fire is still a very damaging character).

I don't think it would take much effort for most brute powersets to get a sub 10 minute pylon time (and at the absolute highend, Iggy's SS/fire/soul brute does 300 DPS, which is on par with the best scrapper times, while also having strong AOE output and not requiring any fodder ; the one downside is much, much lower survivability than the other 300 DPS build, DM/SD scrapper) ; but when you also want to softcap to all positions except psi on an invul, it gets trickier.

That said, I agree that AV soloability isn't very relevant to feeling (and even being) awesome.

As for biggest DPS with /inv, I'd probably go with DM or KM scrapper.

That's true. My point was more along the line of we took him down in about ten minutes, including about 40-50 seconds spent on each AV (more than that on Nemesis as he bubbled once), so based on that it doesn't seem too far fetched to me to extrapolate that a solo cold/son might have a shot at him, albeit obviously in a much slower way.

Same as if you can kill a level 50 GM with three characters and none of them have -regen, it's probably safe to say than the strongest of these three characters could solo an AV.

If you activate Hasten and use the Very Rare Alpha Slot, you're already 15s away from perma on that build.

Two days ago, I didn't feel like making and leading a full PUG so we just ended up going with 3 people (4 characters, my second account playing with just one attack on auto).

- energy/storm corruptor (player who joined us)
- cold/sonic defender (my friend)
- DB/inv scrapper (me)
- fire/fire tanker (second account)

Everyone was level shifted save for the tanker. We finished the whole TF in 47 minutes (including mishaps like me starting the TF on x8, me keeping the second account out during the first mission although you have to go in, and me getting devoluted during the Nosferatu fight... Yeah, I screw up a lot ) and Reichsman was surprisingly easy, I think it didn't take us more than ten minutes and that's including the time taken to kill all 4 AVs. Now of course this is 3-4 characters and not one, but I'd wager the cold/sonic did most of the job. In fact while we were fighting the AVs I just let the fire/fire tanker hit Reichsman with Scorch on auto as to keep aggro away and his health bar didn't move up much if at all. I could see a cold/sonic specialized in ST damage (maybe taking the fortunata mistress as an epic, with so much -res flying around pets can add a significant amount of DPS against a lone big target) taking him down solo without temps.

FM's main advantage is that fire isn't resisted much. 160 DPS on a FM is often better than 180 DPS on any S/L primary because tons of foes have some kind of S/L resistances at level 50.

It's also DPE efficient and doesn't rely on damage buffage, so it works rather well with sets giving you a significant damage boost (that is, Shield), especially on scrappers.

On Invul (no damage aura or damage boosting ability of any kind), with medium recharge, lacking procs, the numbers aren't so impressive.

Including everything (server ticks, time spent using additional clicks, accuracy, etc.) I'm getting :

- 164.7 DPS for GFS Incin Crem FS using your build, and an end consumption of 3.13 with the cardiac very rare (45% end) ; with a ~2.6s recovery, that's about 3 minutes and a half of nonstop fighting (perf shifter proc and hasten crash included, they more or less cancel each other).

You could also not use Hasten and do 161 DPS, ending up with a much more manageable consumption of 3.03eps and recovery of 2.8eps, giving you almost eight minutes of nonstop fighting.

- 162.2 DPS for Incin Scorch Crem Scorch using my build, and an end consumption of 2.11 with the cardiac very rare (45% end again) , ending up with an endurance drain of 0.08 per second after recovery (20 minutes of nonstop fighting).

Either chain is going to take a pretty long time killing a pylon, you're looking at 15-16 minutes of nonstop and lagless fighting (around that kind of DPS the slightest stop can throw you back several seconds if not minutes against a pylon).

Edit: err, stupid me. The very rare includes a level shift, so against a pylon you can boost all of these numbers by 11%, giving you 183, 179 and 180 DPS respectively. Might not seem like a big jump, but that's the difference between taking fifteen minutes or just twelve against a pylon.

Edit 2: err, stupid me again. The level shift doesn't work against pylons. Pointless edits.

I have a fair number of incarnate scrappers, tankers and brutes, more than anything else in fact. In the few PUGs I joined where I wasn't leader, I noticed many leaders tend to avoid melee ATs when they recruit - some will outright refuse to start a TF without a specific mix of buffs/debuffs (or even that mythical beast called the "healer") or *with* more than 2 melee ATs ; so I think it might be part like Biowraith said (easiest AT so lots of players flock to it) and part because you don't see the other ATs as they're already teamed and in missions.

Which is really a win/win situation for me. I don't do cookie cutter groups, so all those people left out by "elitist" PUGs are the ones filling my teams. Never had to wait more than two minutes to get a group of 8 since the weekly TFs.

My success stories are pretty boring to anyone that isn't me. In a nutshell, running TFs as often as usual but having an easier time recruiting, going faster or with less people and still completing fast, making lots of new friends, bringing out old characters. Having fun.

I said what I said, nothing more nothing less - I don't care what's the exact effect, normal AI or fear in Burn, the point is they run away and they do so instantly. I'll add that it happens against most mobs (any kind, except of course AVs) and that I have a grand total of 10% defense on this character.

Having a blast with both TFs. Starting to wonder if some people like anything that isn't RPing in pocket D, sitting under Atlas statue or doorsitting in a farm.

On a SS/inv, my 4 pools would be Hasten, Combat Jumping, Aid Self and Tough/Weave.

You keep another character in the TF, logged out.

Crabs have scrapper level defenses, and a scrapper can tank the 8 AVs in the finale. I have no doubt a full team of crabs could jump in and kick butt.

Silence sound guide. I'm not sure if it's still accurate as of today, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be.

First you hate hurdle, then you hate taunt auras. Are you sure you're not bizarro me?

I only get to play three scrapper secondaries (and frankly, actually just two because RttC doesn't do the job I want it to do), as lacking a taunt aura is too much of a burden for both me and my team (always jumping in first, if I play a scrapper that can't taunt stuff tends to scatter). I'm gravitating more and more towards brutes and tankers, even though I wish I could play scrappers instead. Lacking a taunt aura not only decreases damage, it also lowers survivability - they're not all tightly grouped for AoE status effects, and as they die slower one has to survive their damage for a longer period of time.

It's simple, really. At low or high levels, the formula is the same : hold most of the aggro => keep teammates alive => teammates help your survivability with damage, status effects or buffs/debuffs/heals.

I think it's been established about 3 or 4 topics ago Eiko-chan is pretty much alone in his specific definition of "introvert = hate MMO teams", and the fact that he ignores every real introvert who posted saying he/she feels differently and went on to keep saying the same stuff in a bazillion different topics is a rather obvious plea for attention. Introvert my ***, just your average forum drama queen.

I agree with your reasoning that there isn't much difference between the Very Rare and the Rare, compared to the (relatively) greater effort. I'll personally get them because I play a lot and run endgame TFs as part of my normal playstyle, but if one feels that to be a grind it sure doesn't seem worth it to go beyond a Rare.